ordure of a young boy, internally; “Eau de Millefleurs,” the excreta of
lizards, crocodiles, foxes, sparrows, starlings, chickens, or of cows
gathered in May, externally.
See also pages 172, 207.
For the eradication of freckles Paullini also recommended the external
application of the excrement of donkeys, dogs, chickens, crocodiles,
foxes, or pigeons.
Schurig was a champion of “Aqua ex stercore distillata,” for all facial
embellishment.—(“Chylologia,” p. 762.)
“Il y a plus; les femmes les plus belles s’en sont barbouillé le
visage, et Saint Jérome le reproche durement aux dames de son temps.”
In a footnote is added this explanation: “On a employé des excrémens
de quelques lézards d’Egypte comme cosmétique, à cause de leur odeur
musquée.” (“Bib. Scat.,” p. 21.) “Merde de Lézard c’est le cordilea,
excrément du stellion du Levant, employé comme cosmétique.”—(Idem, p.
123.)
“Wash the face with the diaper on which a new-born babe has urinated for
the first time, it will remove freckles.”—(Cape Breton, Mrs. Fanny D.
Bergen, Cambridge, Mass.)
This belief in the cosmetic power of the first renal discharge of a child
is generally diffused all over the United States.
“Enfin, les nourrices entre nous, ont l’habitude de frotter la figure
de leurs nourrissons avec les langes imbibés de leur urine. Cela les
fait venir beau, disent-elles, cela combat en tout cas, certaines
efflorescences cutanées chez les enfants, par l’ammoniaque.”—(Personal
letter from Doctor Bernard, Cannes, France.)
Prof. Patrice de Janon states that the ladies of his native place,
Carthagena, South America, to his personal knowledge, were in the habit
of using their own urine as a face lotion, and to beautify and soften the
skin.
Horse-dung was another face lotion.—(“A Rich Storehouse or Treasurie for
the Diseased,” Ralph Blower, London, 1616, p. 106.)
Goose-dung is in repute in the State of Indiana for removing
pimples.—(Mrs. Bergen.)
Mr. Sylvester Baxter says that young women in Massachusetts, at least
until very recently, have employed human urine as a wash for the
preservation of the complexion.
“Water that stands in the concavity of a patch of cow-dung” is the
belief in Walden, Mass., according to Mrs. Bergen, who thus shows a
transplantation of the same belief which has lingered in Europe from
remote ages.
XLII.
AMULETS AND TALISMANS.
As a connecting link between pharmacy proper and the antidotes to the
effects of witchcraft, and at the same time fully deserving of a separate
place on its own merits, may be inserted a chapter upon talismans and
amulets made of excrementitious materials.
“From the cradle, modern Englishmen are taught to fight an angry battle
against superstition, and they treat a talisman or charm with some
disdain and contempt. But let us reflect that those playthings tended
to quiet and reassure the patient, to calm his temper, and soothe his
nerves,—objects, which, if we are not misinformed, the best practitioners
of our own day willingly obtain by such means as are left them.
“Whether a wise physician will deprive a humble patient of his roll of
magic words or take from his neck the fairy stone, I do not know; but
this is certain, that the Christian church of that early day, and the
medical science of the empire by no means refused the employment of these
arts of healing, these balms of superstitious origin.
“The reader may enjoy his laugh at such devices, but let him remember
that dread of death and wakeful anxiety must be hushed by some means, for
they are very unfriendly to recovery from disease.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,”
vol. i. p. 11.)
Cat-dung, “to be attached to the body with the toe of a horned owl” and
“not to be removed until the seventh paroxysm is passed,” was the amulet
recommended by Pliny for the cure of the quartan fever.—(Lib. xxviii. c.
66.)
Sextus Placitus, “De Puello et Puella Virgine,” recommends the use of
calculi to aid in the expulsion of calculi, either ground into a powder
or hung about the patient’s neck as an amulet; in the latter case, he
says, the cure is more gradual.
Roman matrons used a small stone found in the excrement of a
hind “attached to the body as an amulet,” as “a preventive of
abortion.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 77.)
In retarded dentition, there was a bag suspended from the infant’s neck,
in which was a powder, made of equal parts of the dung of hares, wolves,
and crows.—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 820).
“Wolf’s dung, borne with one, helps the colic.”—(Burton, “Anatomy of
Melancholy,” vol. ii. p. 134.)
Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” 1621, p. 476, has the following
passage on this subject: “Amulets I find prescribed; taxed by some,
approved by others.”—(Quoted by Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. ii. p. 324,
article “Amulets.”)
No explanation can be ventured upon for the following charm, which had a
very extended dissemination throughout Europe, and can be traced back to
“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. x. p. 33.
“Many magic writings are simply invocations of the devil.... A woman
obtained an amulet to cure sore eyes. She refrained from shedding tears
and her eyes recovered. On a zealous friend opening the paper, these
words were found: “Der teufel kratze dir die augen aus, und scheisse dir
in die löcher,” and, naturally, when the woman saw that it was in this
she had trusted, she lost faith, began to weep again, and in due time
found her eyes as bad as ever. (“Folk Medicine,” Black, p. 171.) The
same charm was also, in other places, written in Latin, in this form:
“Diabolus effodiat tibi oculos, impleat foramina stercoribus.” It is
quoted by Pettigrew, in ”Medical Superstitions,” p. 102; also by Brand,
“Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 324, article “Characts.”
Translated into English it is thus rendered by Reginald Scot:—
“The devil pull out both thine eyes,
And etihs in the holes likewise.”
“Spell the word backward and you shall see this charm.”—(“Discoverie of
witchcraft,” London, 1651, p. 178.)
“For diphtheria, a poultice consisting of the fresh excrement of the hog,
is worn about the neck for one night.” (Fayette County.)—(“Folk-Lore of
the Penn’a Germans,” in “Journal of American Folk-Lore,” 1889, p. 29, W.
J. Hoffman, M. D.)
For diseases in the kidneys, as an amulet χαραβραωθ, which means
“viscera” in Hebrew: “In cubili canis urinam faciat qui urinam non
potest continere, dicatque dum facit, ne in cubili suo urinam ut canis
faciat.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 31. See also under Grand Lama,
love-philters, mistletoe, witchcraft.)
Each and every one of the remedies inserted here under the title of
“Witchcraft,” might with perfect propriety have been comprehended under
the caption of “Pharmacy,” but the intention was to differentiate
the two in the hope of attaining greater clearness in treatment.
Under “Pharmacy,” therefore, have been retained all remedies for the
alleviation of known disorders, while under “Witchcraft” are tabulated
all that were to be administered or applied for the amelioration of
ailments of an obscure type, the origin of which the ignorant sufferer
would unhesitatingly seek in the malevolence of supernatural beings or
in the machinations of human foes possessed of occult influences. Side
by side with these, very properly go all such aids as were believed to
insure better fortune in money-making, travelling, etc.
“A mixture of ape’s-dung and chameleon-dung was applied to the doors
of one’s enemy.... He will, through its agency, become the object of
universal hatred.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 29.)
“The excrements (i. e. of the hyena) which have been voided by the animal
at the moment when killed, are looked upon as counter-charms to magic
spells.”—(Idem, c. 27.)
“For young girls they (i. e. the magicians) prescribe nine pellets of
hare’s dung to ensure a durable firmness to the breasts.”—(Idem, c. 77.)
Doctor Dupouy believes that when the Druids “were forced to take refuge
in dense forests far removed from the people, persecuted by the Romans,
barbarians, and Christians, they progressively became magicians,
enchanters, prophets, and charmers, condemned by the Councils and
banished by the civil authority. It is at this epoch that evil spirits
were noticed prowling around in the shadows of night and indulging
in acts of obscene depravity.... In the seventh century Druidism
disappeared, but the practice of magic, occult art, and the mysterious
science of spirits were transmitted from generation to generation but
lessened in losing the philosophical character of ancient times.”—(“Le
Moyen Age Médical,” or its translation, “Physicians in the Middle Ages,”
T. C. Minor, M. D., Cincinnati, Ohio, p. 38.)
XLIII.
WITCHCRAFT.—SORCERY.—CHARMS.—SPELLS.—INCANTATIONS.—MAGIC.
There is but one method of arriving at a correct understanding of what
witchcraft was, as known to civilized communities, and that is by placing
it under the lens of investigation as a mutilated and distorted survival
of a displaced religion.
The very earliest records of man’s thought, the alabaster and earthen
tablets of Chaldea and Assyria, allude to the evil eye, to incantations,
and to the fear of evil spirits, witches, and sorcerers.
“Nevertheless, the Chaldean tablets do not leave us without any insight
into witchcraft, as their formulæ were destined to counteract the effects
of the sorceries of this impious art, as well as the spontaneous action
of demons.”—(“Chaldean Magic,” François Lenormant, London, 1877, p. 59;
for the Chaldean’s dread of the Evil Eye, see the same work, p. 61.)
“One fine series (i. e. of Chaldean tablets) deals with remedies against
witchcraft.”—(“The Chaldean Account of Genesis,” George Smith, New York,
1880, p. 28.)
“There is finally a third species of magic, thoroughly diabolical in
character, and openly acknowledging itself as such. This kind helps
to perpetuate ... by still believing in their power and transforming
them into dark practices, the rites of adoration of the ancient gods,
considered as demons after the triumph of the new religion, the exclusive
spirit of which repudiates all association with the remains of the
old worship. The enchanter in this case, far from considering himself
an inspired and divine personage, consents, provided he reaps all the
benefit of his magic practices, to be nothing more than the tool of the
bad and infernal powers. He himself sees devils in the ancient gods
evoked by his spells, but he nevertheless remains confident of their
protection; he engages himself in their service by compacts, and fancies
himself going to a witch-dance in their company. The greater part
of the magic of the Middle Ages bears this character and perpetuates
the popular and superstitious rites of paganism in the mysterious and
diabolical operations of sorcery. It is the same with the magic of most
Mussulman countries. In Ceylon, since the complete conversion of the
island to Buddhism, the ancient gods of Sivaism have become demons, and
their worship a guilty sorcery practised only by enchanters.”—(“Chaldean
Magic,” Lenormant, p. 77.)
Human and animal filth are mentioned in nearly every treatise upon
witchcraft, under three different heads:—
Firstly, as the means by which the sorcery is accomplished.
Secondly, as the antidote by which such machinations are frustrated.
Thirdly, as the means of detecting the witch’s personality.
Much that might have been included within this chapter has been arranged
under the caption of “Love-Philters” and “Child-Birth,” and should be
examined under those heads.
The subject of amulets and talismans is another that is so closely
connected with the matter of which we are now treating, that it must be
included in any investigation made in reference to it.
Exactly where the science of medicine ended, and the science of
witchcraft began, there is no means of knowing; like Astrology and
Astronomy, they were twin sisters, issuing from the same womb, and
travelling amicably hand in hand for many years down the trail of
civilization’s development; long after medicine had won for herself a
proud position in the world of thought and felt compelled through shame
to repudiate her less-favored comrade in public, the strictest and
closest relations were maintained in the seclusion of private life.
“Among the counter-charms too are reckoned the practice of spitting into
the urine the moment it is voided.”—(Pliny, lib, xxviii. cap. 7.)
“Goat’s dung attached to infants, in a piece of cloth, prevents them
from being restless, female infants in particular.” (Idem, cap. 78.)
This was probably a survival from times still more ancient, when infants
were sometimes suckled by goats, and it was a good plan to have them
thoroughly familiarized with the smell,—the hircine or caprine odor.
“In cases of fire, if some of the dung can be brought away from the
stalls, both sheep and oxen may be got out all the more easily, and will
make no attempt to return.”—(Idem, cap. 81.)
The adepts in magic expressly forbid a person, when about to make water,
to uncover the body in the face of the sun or moon, or to sprinkle
with his urine the shadow of any object whatsoever. Hesiod gives a
precept recommending persons to make water against an object standing
full before them, that no divinity may be offended by their nakedness
being uncovered. Osthanes maintains that every one who drops some
urine upon his foot in the morning will be proof against all noxious
medicaments.—(Idem, lib. xxviii. cap. 19.)
The adepts in the magical art also believed that “it is improper to spit
into the sea, or to profane that element by any other of the evacuations
that are inseparable from the infirmities of human nature.”—(Idem, lib.
xxx. cap. 6, speaking of the disinclination of the Armenian magician,
Tiridates, to visit the Emperor Nero by sea.)
The Thibetans share these scruples. Among the things prohibited to their
“Bhikshuni,” or monks and nuns, are: “Ne pas se soulager dans de l’eau
quand on n’est pas malade, n’y cracher, n’y moucher, y vomir, ni y
jeter quoi que soit de sale.”—(“Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W.
Rockhill, Paris, 1884, Soc. Asiatique.)
It was believed that a dog would not bark at a man who carried hare’s
dung about his person.—(See Pliny, lib. xxx. cap. 53.)
“The therionaca ... has the effect of striking wild beasts of all kinds
with a torpor which can only be dispelled by sprinkling them with the
urine of the hyena.” (Idem, lib. xxiv. cap. 102.) The hyena was regarded
as an especially “magical” animal.—(Idem, lib. xxviii.)
“The magicians tell us that, after taking the ashes of a wild-boar’s
genitals in urine, the patient must make water in a dog-kennel, and
repeat the following formula: ‘This I do that I may not wet my bed, as a
dog does.’”—(Idem, lib. xxviii. cap. 60.)
Some of these ideas would appear to have crossed the Atlantic. In the
United States, a generation or less ago, boys were wont to urinate
“criss-cross” for good luck, and were careful not to let any of their
urine fall on their own shadows.—(Col. F. A. Seelye, Anthropological
Society, and others, Washington, D. C.)
In Minden, Westphalia, Germany, boys will urinate criss-cross, and
say, “Kreuspissen, morgenstirbstein-Jude” (“Let us piss criss-cross, a
Jew will die to-morrow”).—(Personal letter from Dr. Franz Boas, Clark
University, Worcester, Mass.)
“Nor ever defile the currents of rivers flowing seaward, nor fountains,
but specially avoid it.”—(“Opera et Dies,” Rev. J. Banks, London, 1856,
p. 115.)
“Sorcerers try to procure some of a man’s excrement, and put it in his
food in order to kill him.”—(“Muhongo,” a boy from Angola, Africa,
personal interview, interpretation by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)
“Muhongo” also said that to “add one’s urine, even unintentionally, to
the food of another bewitches that other, and does him grievous harm.”
Democritus says of the stone “aspisatis:” “Patients should wear it
attached to the body with camel’s dung.” (Quoted in Pliny, lib. xxvii.
cap. 54.) The same book tells us that stones of this kind were worn
generally by gladiators, Milo of Crotona being mentioned as one. What
“aspisatis” was cannot be learned.
“Another thing universally acknowledged, and one which I am ready to
believe with the greatest pleasure, is the fact that if the door-posts
are only touched with the menstruous fluid, all spells of the magicians
will be neutralized.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. cap. 24.)
“Osthanes, who accompanied Xerxes, the Persian king, in his expedition
against Greece, ... the first person, so far as I can ascertain, who
wrote upon magic.” (Idem, lib. xxx. cap. 3.) He adds, speaking of magic:
“Britannia still cultivates this art, and that with ceremonials so august
that she might almost seem to have been the first to communicate them to
Persia.”—(Idem, lib. xxx. cap. 4.)
For the relief of infants from phantasm, wrap some goat-dung in a cloth
and hang it about the child’s neck. “Ad infantes qui fantasmatibus
vexantur, capræ stercus in panno involutum, et collo suspensum remedium
est infantibus qui fantasmata patiuntur.”—(Sextus Placitus, “De Capro.”)
“With Plinius was contemporary Joseph or Josephus. The tales about the
mandrake, much later on, and found in the Saxon herbarium, are traceable
to what he says of the Baaras,—an herb that runs away from the man that
wants to gather it, and won’t stop until one throws on it οὖρον γυναικὸς
ἢ τὸ ἔμμηνον αἷμα, for nastiness is often an element of mysteries; and
even then it kills the dog that draws it out. It is not certain that
mandrake berries are meant in Genesis, xxx. 14.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol.
i. p. 16.)
Dulaure says that the repute in which mandrake was held was due to its
resemblance to the human form, and to the lies told to the superstitious
about it, one being that “ils disent qu’il est engendré dessous un gibet
de l’urine d’un larron pendu.”—(“Des Différens Cultes,” Paris, 1825, vol.
ii. p. 255, footnote.)
“For a man haunted by apparitions work a drink of a white hound’s thost
or dung in bitter ley; wonderfully it healeth.” (“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol.
i. p. 365.) This same “thost,” or dung, was recommended in the treatment
of nits and other insects on children, for dropsy (internally), and
to drive away the “Dwarves,” who were believed to have seized upon the
patient afflicted with convulsions.
“Doors of houses are smeared with cow-dung and nimba-leaves, as a
preservative from poisonous reptiles.”—(Moor’s “Hindu Pantheon,” London,
1810, p. 23.)
“In some parts of Western Africa, when a man returns home after a
long absence, before he is allowed to visit his wife he must wash his
person with a particular fluid, and receive from the sorcerer a certain
mark on his forehead, in order to counteract any magic spell which a
stranger woman may have cast upon him in his absence, and which might
be communicated through him to the women of his village.”—(“The Golden
Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 157.)
We are not informed what this “particular fluid” was, but enough has been
adduced concerning the African’s belief in the potency of human urine in
cases similar to the above to warrant the insertion at this point.
“On returning from an attempted ascent of the great African mountain,
Kilimanjaro, which is believed by the neighboring tribes to be tenanted
by dangerous demons, Mr. New and his party, as soon as they reached the
borders of the inhabited country, were disenchanted by the inhabitants,
being sprinkled with ‘a professionally prepared liquor, supposed to
possess the potency of neutralizing evil influences, and removing the
spell of wicked spirits.’”—(Idem, vol. i. p. 151, quoting Charles New,
“Life, Wanderings, and Labors in Eastern Africa.”)
That the Eskimo believed in the power of human ordure to baffle
witchcraft would seem to be intimated in the following from Boas: “Though
the Angekok understood the schemes of the old hag, he followed the boy,
and sat down with her. She feigned to be very glad to see him and gave
him a dishful of soup, which he began to eat. But by the help of his
tornaq [that is, the magical influence which aided him] the food fell
right through him into a vessel which he had put between his feet on
the floor of the hut. This he gave to the old witch, and compelled her
to eat it. She died as soon as she had brought the first spoonful to
her mouth.”—(“The Central Eskimo,” Franz Boas, in “Sixth Annual Report”
Bureau of Ethnology, Washington.)
“Osthanes, the magician, prescribed the dipping of our feet, in the
morning, in human urine, as a preventative against charms.”—(Brand, “Pop.
Ant.,” vol. iii. p. 286.)
Frommann writes that human ordure, menses, and semen were mixed in the
food of the person to be bewitched.—(“Tractatus de Fascinatione,” p. 683.)
On another page this list is increased to read that human ordure,
urine, blood, hair, nails, bones, skulls, and the moss growing on the
last-named, as well as animal excrement, were among the materials
employed in witchcraft.—(Idem, p. 684.)
If fried beans be thrown into excrement, for each bean thus wasted a
pustule will appear on the fundament of the thrower. “Pisa frixa injecta
excrementis tot pustulas in podice excitant quot pisa.” (Idem, p. 1023.)
The following passage is not fully understood: “Vesicatorio excrementis
adhuc calentibus imposito intestina corrosione afficiuntur.” It seems to
mean that the entrails will be affected with corrosion when hot excrement
is placed in a bladder, probably after the manner of some of the sausages
of which we have elsewhere taken notes. Hot ashes or cinders thrown upon
recently voided excrement will cause inflammation and pustules in ano.
For the same reason we can cause those who are absent to purge without
using medicine upon them. “Cineres calidi, vel prunæ candentes scybalis
recentibus injecta inflammationem et pustulas in ano excitant.... Eadem
ratione absentes sine medicamentis purgari posse, scribit Tilemannus
de Mater. Medic. p. 251. (Idem, p. 1623.) Frommann also adds that
this fact was well known to the English and French, as well as to the
Germans.”—(Idem, p. 1037.)
Human ordure and urine were burned with live coals as a potent charm. The
person whose excreta had been burned would suffer terrible pains in the
rectum. But this could be used in two ways, for love as well as hatred
could be induced by this means, between married people and between old
friends.—(Paullini, pp. 264, 265.)
For the use of urine by the Eskimo to ward off the maleficence of
witches, turn back to citations taken from Rink’s “Tales and Traditions
of the Eskimo,” where it is shown that they still use it with this object
in cases of childbirth. See, also, the notes taken from the writings of
Dr. Franz Boas.
A bone from the leg or thigh of a man who had died a violent death,
emptied of its marrow, and then filled with human ordure, closed up with
wax, and placed in boiling water, compelled the unfortunate ejector of
the excrement to evacuate just as long as the bone was kept in the water,
and it could even be so used that he would be compelled to defile his
bed every night. “Os ex pede, vel brachio, vel femore hominis violenta
morte interempti, et hoc exempta medulla impletur cum stercore alicujus
hominis, foramina obturantur cum cera et sic in aquam calidam immittitur,
hoc quamdiu jacet in aqua calida, tamdiu expurgatur iste, cujus stercus
fuit inclusum, adeo ut sic aliquem usque ad mortem purgare possimus,
potest etiam fieri alio modo ut quis omni nocte lectum suum maculet, sed
est ludicrum.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. pp. 272, 273.)
The small bones of the human leg are used in the sorcery of the
Australians. (See “Native Tribes of South Australia,” Adelaide, 1879,
p. 276; received through the kindness of the Royal Society, Sydney, New
South Wales, F. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)
“In order to produce a flux in the belly, it was only necessary to put
a patient’s excrement into a human bone, and throw it into a stream
of water.” The above is quoted from the medical writings of “Peter of
Spain, who was archbishop, and afterwards pope, under the name of John
XXI.”—(“Physicians of the Middle Ages,” T. C. Minor, p. 6.)